Silent
by Eyes for Eternity
Summary: The best of their moments were silent, with their few whispered words echoing in the air. *a series of oneshots, mostly Galeniss*
1. Sing

So this is the first of what will eventually be a bunch of random drabbles ( I use the word loosely- they'll probably be over 100 words, but won't have enough plot to be considered oneshots). The drabbles will be entirely unrelated. They may or may not be canon. In fact, most of them will be incredibly AU/AR (dunno, those two tend to be used interchangeably these days). Most of them will probably be Galeniss, but some may change the pairing. One thing, though, is that I won't be writing any background. Some pieces might take place 20 years into Katniss's life, in an alternate reality where she married Darius and had seventeen children who all perished in the Hunger Games, but I won't tell you that, so you'll be left to infer for yourself. (That example was a grand exaggeration. None of the stories will involve such random, pointless events. Probably.) So, uh, yeah. Wish me luck. And because I frequently forget to put this in...I don't own the Hunger Games trilogy. I really have no desire to after the fail a that was Mockingjay.

_(sing)_

_ "Deep in the meadow, under the willow; a bed of grass, a soft green pillow. Lay down your head, and close..." _

Gale stopped in his tracks before he made it through the hallway. Her voice had echoed through the air and filled the entire house, a soft, sweet melody that he hadn't heard in at least five years. A song she hadn't dared to sing since she had held a dying body in her arms. As he peeked around the edge of the door, he saw Katniss cradling their baby in her arms, smiling and singing her to a soft sleep. A few thin tears rolled over her cheeks. He thought about going in, of comforting her, but knew he shouldn't. This wasn't something she wanted anyone to see; the moment was hers, an occasion of peace in the nightmares that haunted her every waking second. Instead, he stood silently in the doorway. She wouldn't know he was there, but he was glad he was.

_ "This is the place where I love you." _

He hadn't noticed when the birds went silent outside the window.

* * *

So how was that? Good? Bad? Are you tempted to bleach your brain to forget you ever read it? I will assume it's the latter if you don't review.


	2. Hope

_(hope)_

"Katniss Everdeen."

He knew she had a lot of entries, and he knew the possibility was likely, but now it was too real. He felt the blood drain from his body and his fists clench. He bit his lip until it bled to keep from shouting in anger, or worse, crying. His eyes locked onto the cobblestone ground because he couldn't look at her.

"Gale Hawthorne."

If his world hadn't shattered seconds ago, it did now. He couldn't go into the arena with his best friend, the girl he loved; he couldn't. He couldn't let her die, and in all honesty, he wasn't sure if he'd be strong enough to kill himself when the time came. That's assuming they both made it to the final two. Still, he walked up to the stage in his silent tread and stood by her, comforted when her hand found its way into his. The crowd was silent.

"The District 12 tributes of the 74th Hunger Games!"

Now his hope was gone.


	3. Heart

_(heart)_

On her eighteenth birthday, she was safe. Her name would never be added to the glass bowl to be drawn for the Hunger Games. To celebrate the momentous occasion, Gale had gone shopping in town and met her in the woods with a small, delicate cake, a miniature bottle of good wine, and a silver oval locket. Inside was a faded picture of Katniss and her family (her _whole_ family, father and all) and one of the two of them in the meadow.

When she saw him, she just smiled softly and hugged him. Katniss, of course, didn't see turning eighteen as a good thing. Not only did Prim still have four Reapings left, but now there was no one to take out tesserae and supply the food that came with it.

It took him an hour to lighten her mood to what could pass as joyful; the alcohol probably helped a bit, no matter how diluted it may have been. They didn't hunt that day, just sat on their rock, eating cake and drinking the most expensive wine he could manage to afford. She smiled brightly when he settled the locket around her neck. When the sun set, they lay back and watched the sky become dark, her head on his shoulder and his fingers twined in her hair.

"Marry me?" he asked. She tensed and sat up, and only then did he realize his words. He didn't try to take them back.

"You love me?" she whispered, looking down at his face in shock. He sighed before sitting up beside her.

"Yeah." She stared at him blankly for a moment before looking away.

"You know I can't, Gale, I-"

"I'm not asking for a family, Catnip. I just want you." His voice was hardly audible at the end, and for a moment she thought she hadn't heard the words at all. He set his hand lightly on her shoulder, turning her towards him. She leaned into him and a soft smile made it to her lips.

"Okay."

She had taken his heart years ago. Now he finally had hers.


	4. Remember

_(remember)_

She was cleaning out her closet when she came upon the rough black case with a broken zipper and fraying canvas. Inside were two bows and one quiver of arrows, and it smelled like _their_ woods. She pulled one of the bows out; it was heavy in her hands. The bowstring was stretched from how long it had been used, and brittle from how long it hadn't. The wood, though worn smooth with use, scratched her soft, scarless fingers and made them itch. She faintly remembered the time when she had held this bow daily, where it was her prized possession and the only way she survived.

She hadn't realized until she pulled it out that the second bow was _his_. It was a bit bigger than the last one, and less worn; he had always preferred snares to bows. The dark mahogany wood smelled like him, like the forest and coal and smoke.

On a whim, she packed both bows back into their thick case and pulled on her coat. The walk out of the Victor's Village seemed short. She stepped into the bright green grass of the meadow, and for a moment, felt sick. This was supposed to be a happy place, the field where she had picked dandelions and watched her sister play. Yet they had chosen here to bury the charred bodies and bones, sometimes anonymous ashes, of the population of District 12. A single plaque had been put in the center of the meadow, hidden by the tall grasses, that listed the names of the dead.

She ignored the feeling and walked past the thin square stone, beyond where the fence used to lie. She longed to crawl under the chain links again.

She knew she had come to _their_ place only by the blackberry bushes, and fought back the memory of that fateful day years ago. She sat on the rock overlooking the valley, brushing away foliage that had grown over in the absence of _their_ bodies. It felt wrong; her body, whose hips had widened from carrying children and whose flesh was no longer so thin, didn't fit in the impressions in the rock anymore. The air was too cold without _him_ beside her, too empty in the absence of _his_ laughter and rants against the Capitol. She stood with the bows and walked deeper into the forest.

The first arrow she shot missed the tree she was aiming for by at least a foot. She could hardly remember a time when she could effortlessly shoot her game in the minuscule target of the eye.

Hanging from a tree was a shred of rope, fraying on the ends but tied in a tight knot in the middle. It took a long time for her to recognize the snare; it was the first one _he_ had taught her.

When she came upon the old, broken concrete house, she found herself laughing humorlessly. What was she doing in their woods, dressed in Capitol-made boots and coat? Who was she kidding trying to rekindle the talent that had once meant everything to her? Those elements of her had been gone for a long, long time. They would never return; she would never shoot game again, or toss berries to her best friend on top of a valley. She'd never feel anything here anymore; it was her past.

Yet, when she started a flame in the fireplace and looked around the room, one vivid memory crawled into her mind, forcing tears through her eyes and making her fall to her knees on the crumbling cement.

_"We run away."_

_ "What?" he asks. It's one of the rare times she's managed to catch him off guard._

_ "We take to the woods and make a run for it," she says, "You said yourself that you thought that we could do it! That morning of the reaping. You said -"_

_ He steps towards her and lifts her off the ground, spinning on the spot. They laugh together, smiling uncontrollably._

_ "Okay, let's run away," he says, still smiling with his arms around her body._

_ "Really? You don't think I'm mad? You'll go with me?"_

_ "I _do_ think you're mad and I'll _still_ go with you," he says truthfully, "We can do it. I know we can. Let's get out of here and never come back!"_

She didn't think of how she had ruined that idea, with her hesitant responses and thinking to take Peeta and Haymitch. Not to mention letting it slip that there were uprisings. She didn't like to have those details of the memory play crystal-clear in her head.

She smiled sadly to herself. How was it that only now, with brittle bones and gray hair and grown children, did she realize just what she had lost? How much she wanted _him_ back, to have been able to say sorry before he was gone forever? How much she regretted letting him leave and choosing Peeta instead?

How did it take this long to remember how she hated to remember?


	5. Escape

_(escape)_

It was finally time to escape them, the cruel hearts and harmful hands of the Capitol. The Hunger Games was no longer just a killing game for their flashy citizens; no, the Games had become a message from the Districts.

_We're running this now, and there's nothing you can do to prevent the Rebellion._

It wasn't fate, not something written in the stars like the supposed romance of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. It wasn't some destiny; the nightlock berries were defiance to the Capitol, a direct action by the Girl on Fire.

It was time for them to pay for all the lives lost, all the misery survived, the oppression and menacing cruelty. Snow knew it was coming; oh, he knew alright. He might have tried to stop it, but it was too late. The Capitol would burn, and the Districts would build a new beginning.

The war had begun.

**AN: So this is pretty much a direct lyric interpretation of Escape by 30 Seconds to Mars (if you're looking for Hunger Games songfic music, check them out. I pretty much worship 30STM and Linkin Park when it comes to Hunger Games-sounding music) in the point of view of an anonymous Panem citizen, probably around the end of Catching Fire or the early time between CF and MJ. Yeah.**


	6. Burn

_(burn)_

Her mother died in a house fire.

It had been years since they had talked; their communication stopped abruptly soon after the Rebellion ended. Katniss had slipped into an oblivion after losing both her sister and her best friend. Her mother fell into a deep depression at the loss of Prim, the same sadness that overtook her when her husband died.

Katniss wasn't sure if she ever forgave her mother for leaving them after her father died. It was her mother, of course, but there was always a nagging sense of doubt that she would never be whole enough to care for the two of them again.

It didn't depress the Girl on Fire that she never got to say goodbye. They had said their goodbyes, while informally, years and years ago, and then several more times in the course of the Games and the War.

It was fitting, she thought, that her mother die by fire. Her father, her sister, and her mother. All having died agonizingly in flames. Katniss, the Girl on Fire. Everyone she touched was burned beyond repair, and even when she left, trails of a smoldering inferno would follow them.

It was just a matter of time until the Girl on Fire burned herself as well.


End file.
